GOD IS IN CONTROL!

City of Rio Bravo.

God is in control!  Pastor Gerardo and his wife Miriam learned that again last Friday.  They were scheduled to attend a meeting of pastors in Reynosa twenty five miles away, but they were running very late. Nothing was going right, there was one problem after another and it was frustrating.  Finally they received a call from Fernando Colorado, the district supervisor, asking them if they were on their way.  They grabbed their things and started driving toward Reynosa, trying to make up time they had lost.

Gerardo and Miriam usually drive through Rio Bravo on their way to Reynosa because the road that bypasses the city is a toll road.  But this time they decided to pay the toll and take the quickest route.  When they arrived at the meeting in Reynosa, they discovered there had been a shoot-out on the street they would have taken through Rio Bravo.  They received a phone call from someone who witnessed the shooting.  That person had a video on their phone that had recorded the multiple gunshots on the street.

If Gerardo and Miriam had not been late, if they had taken their regular route to Reynosa, they could have been involved in a very dangerous situation.  But for reasons beyond their control they were hindered and blocked and forced to take another direction.  God was in control!

Ancient city of Matamoros across the river from Brownsville, Texas.

Lloyd and I experienced God’s timing and control in a similar way years ago in Matamoros.  That time we were with a pastor who wanted to take us to a church he had helped build.  And we wanted to give the church a box of Spanish Bibles.  The pastor said he knew how to get to the church, but things had changed in the city and he could not find the location.  We searched up and down the streets for about three hours and were ready to give up when we finally got to the right neighborhood.  And we could see the congregation was there and a service was about to begin.  We carried our box of Bibles inside at the exact moment to hear the pastor of the church praying, “Lord open up the windows of Heaven and pour out a blessing on us tonight.”  We were right on time!

Come now and pay attention to this, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and carry on our business and make a profit.” Yet you do not know the least thing about what may happen in your life tomorrow. What is secure in your life? You are merely a vapor like a puff of smoke or a wisp of steam from a cooking pot that is visible for a little while and then vanishes into thin air.  Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and we will do this or that.”  James 4:13-15 AMP